


Midnight

by Measured



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Angst, Curses, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 10:59:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3848458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured/pseuds/Measured
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things borne of his past regrets and curses come out at night to haunt him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RAXip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RAXip/gifts).



> As seen in his[bio](http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Demoman#Bio), Demoman has a pretty complex past which isn't touched on a lot. For and betaed by Multiversecafe.

Don't touch forbidden fruit, don't make deals with wizards, don't read the books. These were all things told to him, facts he should have minded. But he'd been a wild thing back then, determined to blow up monsters, determined to read whatever the hell he'd like.

He'd paid the price. Memories would've been enough, but he'd been caught and cursed, and now the ghosts wouldn't let him be. Wizards were thorny like that. Piss one off, and every regret would turn into a demon borne from hell just to scrape and claw at his chest. The worst part was that these hauntings never were filled with lies he could ignore. No, they were filled with the truth of all the wrongs he'd done in his life, a mirror cast of his worst sides, his worst mistakes.

When he was younger, he lit a candle for the dead. He'd kept up the tradition, even if he hadn't increased the number. If he put out one for every soul he'd killed along the way, only burning down half of Scotland would suffice.

The flame flickered. He heard a sound like a wet breath. Even as he turned, he knew there would be nothing but dark, and what filled the dark. Green spots of magic and anguish, just waiting to get him.

They were strongest around the witching hour. During the day they could be lost in the explosions, or beat back by the iron of his sword. But without sunlight and fire to dampen them, talismans and will couldn't keep them away.

Tavish took a drink and waited for the warmth, the numbing that came when he'd imbibed enough. The ghosts and voices would disappear as he blacked out. So would his memories of this night, but everything required a price. Tavish had learned that lesson before he'd even turned ten.

His eye may have been gone, but that didn't keep him from seeing things. The future, the past, people he'd killed and betrayed. Those ghosts all lingered over him, their shapeless faces and the empty dark holes where their eyes would have been judging him and his litany of sins.

The shadows looked like a dark snake coming towards him, flecked with green magic. Out of it came a figure he knew all too well. Jane Doe stood tall over him. A man he'd once called a friend beyond teams and alligeience. His shadow was long across the wall, until it was hard to tell Jane from the dark that contained him. He pointed an accusing finger at Tavish. _I thought you were my friend. I trusted you!_ His blue uniform was stained with blood, the helmet pushed so low that Tavish couldn't see his eyes. Regret? Anger? Knowing him, it was all and more.

"I thought so too," Tavish said to the air. "I thought factions dinnae matter, not to us."

_You're a traitor! A Judas, a turncoat who sold me for a sword!_

"And you didn't? I heard the tapes," Tavish said.

Jane's figure struck out at him, hands towards his neck. He could almost feel the warmth and force of them there before he disappeared into smoke. 

"I never told," Tavish said to the empty room. The ghosts didn't respond. They never did anything useful like that. And Jane would never hear the truth. He'd tried to explain so many times, and left with shotgun shells under his skin and burn marks from barely escaping the explosions.

Had he come any closer, he would've had marks on his neck. Jane never was one for forgiveness.

The darkness swirled, like a snake creeping towards him.

His first mother was next, wispy and translucent, floating above him. He could only remember her in increments, a soft voice, a gingham apron and strong hands. So much of her was lost to time.

The blue gingham dress turned dark with burning. The fabric curled in on itself. Her mouth opened, like she was going to say something. Probably a recrimination, considering the last time he'd seen her, she'd been dust, buried under the rubble of the only home he'd ever known. 

She floated above him, a long wordless shadow across his memory.

On one side of the room was nothing more than a television, with beer bottles surrounding it like modern art. Clutter and the follies of man and their choices in daytime television. He wasn't one for decoration. Clutter would just get blown up along the way in the next fire, the next time he crossed wires. A Highlands Demolition man always packed a coin to give at the dark river, for his life was always one step away from ash and dust.

On the other, the screen turned to static. Things crawled out, dark and sharp. He'd hunted monsters like that before, clawed them free from glens and shoved iron into their mouths. Bombs finished off what the metal started. But creatures like that never really left, they just attached their lives to his regrets and fed off his every dark mood.

Don't let a wizard near you, that's what they should've told him. _Don't ever work for a wizard. The stones will cry out for every person or creature taken._ His life was a handbook of roads he shouldn't have taken that fell off a cliff into the depths of hell. But he'd clawed himself up back from the abyss more than once, and by all the iron in Scotland, he'd do it as many times as he drew breath.

If he ever found some child clutching at haunted swords and trying to go chase dragons, he'd tell them a thing or two. _Don't cross yae wires wrong, or it'll be the last thing you ever do. Don't pick a fight with fae, they don't die and like to stick to ye. Don't pass out in fae rings, or follow will o' the wisps into the night. And don't ever, ever go near a wizard. If yae are stupid enough to do all this and more like me, take on drinking, it's easier that way._

He took one drink after another. Long ago he'd learned to guzzle and force himself into a quick state of near comatose, until everything became softer. The creatures and memories blurred out. Iron hadn't beaten them, nor fire, but alcohol, now that was one thing too powerful for them to burst through.

"Aye, I'll beat yae all be tastin' my sword. One day, I'mma blow yae to smithereens. Ye hear me? Blow you sky high!"

The ghost of his first mother opened her mouth. He didn't have to hear her to know she'd said _you already did._


End file.
